


Almost

by jonsastan (lilzipop)



Series: Jonsa Week [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, One Shot, Post Season 8, Post Series, angst with a kinda sad ending, angsty mcangst face
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-08 12:57:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21476395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilzipop/pseuds/jonsastan
Summary: It snowed on Sansa’s third wedding day.“It’s lucky, your grace.” Her lady’s maid had told her as her hair was braided and twisted into a relatively simple style, most of her auburn hair flowing down her back. Sansa nodded and smiled politely.Jonsa Week - Day One: Past - Present - {Future}
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Series: Jonsa Week [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1548010
Comments: 18
Kudos: 108
Collections: JonsaWeek2019





	Almost

**Author's Note:**

> Day one of Jonsa week and I used the prompt "Future".  
Please forgive my mistakes, my work is unbeta'd.

It snowed on Sansa’s third wedding day. 

“It’s lucky, your grace.” Her lady’s maid had told her as her hair was braided and twisted into a relatively simple style, most of her auburn hair flowing down her back. Sansa nodded and smiled politely.

_It was an ill omen for my second marriage._

“Thank you Lyra. I’ll finish getting ready myself.” The handmaid nodded and bowed before leaving, a swirl of cold air slipping into Sansa’s dressing room. 

Sansa looked at the mirror. Her face had changed. The dark circles under her eyes lightened, her cheeks had filled out, the crease between her brows had become slightly more pronounced. 

Out of the corner of the mirror, Sansa’s eye was caught by her maiden cloak. It was the true Stark cloak. Not the fake produced in the capital or the plain one the Bolton’s had used, fearing the power of the Stark sigil. But the true Stark cloak. The cloak her father had wrapped her mother in, the cloak of her ancestors. It was her family and the North and Winterfell. 

And today she would wrap her husband in it, and he would wrap her in his cloak. 

_A meeting of equals._

Sansa glanced down at the polished steel of her crown.

_Almost equals._

She moved and wrapped the cloak around her shoulders, burying her nose in the furs. 

~~~

_She’d spent so long on that embossed direwolf. Making sure to be careful and delicate, to get every detail as perfect as her memory allowed. _

_“New dress?” He’d asked and she still relished the Northern lilt in his voice. _

_“I made it myself, do you like it?” She’d answered, looking down at the dress that had been the only thing that kept her sane since leaving Wintefell. It had kept her fingers busy and her mind from wandering. _

_“Yeah, it looks-” She noticed Jon’s eyes travel over her, over her body, pausing at the beaded wolf on her chest. She thought she saw something warm in Jon’s eyes, warmer than a brother’s appreciation and wondered, not for the first time, if Ramsey had broken her. “I-I like the wolf bit.” He’d said half pointing. _

_She’d smiled and felt warmth radiate from her chest to her toes. _

_“Good.” She had taken a breath and felt a strange bundle of nerves replace the warmth. “Because I made this for you. I made it like the one father used to wear.” She handed him the cloak she had spent hour upon hour making. The cloak she had wept over because to remember it she had to remember her father and the constant ache of her heart. “As near as I can remember.” _

_He looked at her then, with such awe and wonder and unworth, and for a dreadful moment she thought he might reject it, reject her. _

_But his comforting, Northern lilt came to her_

_“Thank you, Sansa.” _

_“You’re welcome.” _

_~~~_

Sansa moved back to her mirror, shifting the heavy, warm, cloak until it sat perfectly in place. Reaching she placed the crown on her head and looked in her mirror. 

_Regal._ She thought. _In a quiet Northern way._

She pulled open her door and made her way toward the Godswood. No one walked with her. She had no one who should. Bran ruled the southern Kingdoms and Arya was in a distant place. 

~~~

_She had greeted the Dragon Queen in a manner that would have disappointed her mentors. She could almost hear Littlefinger scolding her for revealing her hand. And as she watched Jon talk with the silver haired beauty she did hear him in her mind._

_‘Why aren't you happy? What do you want that you do not have?’_ and her own voice answered ‘Jon’.

_It wasn’t until days later, after she’d asked if he loved Daenerys and he had not answered, after Jon had become her cousin, after the Battle of Winterfell, after the Dragon Queen had announced they would march south immediately, had she gotten a taste of what she wanted. _

_She was down in the crypts, surveying the damage the dead had done to the final resting place of all the Starks when she’d heard him. She had stopped between the statues of her father and his mother. _

_“Sansa?” He’d called in his soft and gruff voice. _

_“Hmm?” She’d breathed back, trying not to feel as if she could just reach out and touch him. She’s left her cloak by the stairs, the heat of underground allowing her to feel comfortable in her dress. _

_“I was looking for you.” She turned at that, trying to quash the burst of hope in her chest. He was closer than she’d anticipated, so close she could have counted his eyelashes. “We’re leaving soon.” _

_“I-I know. I would have returned to say goodbye.” _

_“Aye.” He murmured. She felt a warmth ghost her hand and wondered if Jon had almost touched her. “I needed to tell you.” He looked at her and she felt her breath caught in her throat. She wanted to clasp her hand over his mouth, to keep the announcement of his engagement to Daenerys from being spoken, because maybe if she didn’t hear it then it wasn’t real. But instead, she nodded. “I never bent the knee.” _

_“What?” _

_“I-I was clever, I think. Like you said, trying to be- be better than Robb or Fa- or Lord Stark. I told her she was my queen, but I never bent the knee.” _

_Sansa didn’t think, she threw her arms around him and pulled him as close to her as she could. She buried her nose into his shoulder and breathed in his fresh and clean smell. His arms soon came up around her waist and she felt his own head bend and nuzzle into her shoulder_

_“That was clever.” She whispered. “That was so very clever.” She felt him pull away then and almost whimpered at the loss of him, but he did not release his hold on her waist._

_“I need to answer a question you asked. I bent the knee for the North.” He was not looking at her, was staring at a lock of her hair that rested on her shoulder. “I bent the knee for love.” He looked up and as his grey eyes locked with hers, his hand left her waist to cup her cheek. Slowly, he leaned in, giving her time to pull away. _

_But she didn’t. She closed the space between them. _

_She tasted what she truly wanted. _

_And then all too quickly it was over and Jon was pressing his forehead to hers and turning from her, leaving her in the crypts, in the North, alone. _

_~~~_

“You look truly lovely, your grace.” Maester Wolkan said with a bow. She smiled tightly at him as she moved closer to the Godswood. He hurried ahead to take his position at the Heart Tree. 

No one would be giving her today. She would give and take for herself, no longer a pawn to be moved and sacrificed at will, but a queen. 

She moved forward, nodding and smiling at the small group of Lords, Ladies, and loyal people come to watch their queen wed and secure an alliance. They looked happy, genuinely pleased at the perceived security of the North, for with a married queen, heirs would be soon to follow. 

~~~

_“Him?” Jon had almost shouted. “Him!? You’ve only just met the man!”_

_“He is a prince!” Sansa retorted, feeling her face flush._

_“Aye and the last prince you were betrothed to was a maiden’s dream.” _

_“Don’t you dare.” She almost growled at him. “Don’t you dare, criticise my decision when you have absented yourself-”_

_“It wasn’t a choice, Sa-”_

_“It was!” She was shouting now, she knew. But she did not care. “Five pardons Jon! Five! I wrote five pardons, welcoming you back to the North, back to Winterfell. I invited you home in any manner you chose, as my king, as my family, as my hus-” She stopped herself, turning from him, the memory of her last letter and her only response from him still raw in her heart. “You always had a place here Jon. You chose your life.”_

_“But this isn’t your choice, Sansa.” He had soften under her fury. _

_“I am the Queen in the North and the Lady of Winterfell, my choice is to serve my people.” _

_“But I-”_

_“You don’t get to choose this, Jon!” She spun to face him. “You gave up that right when you abandoned Winterfell, when you abandoned me.” He looked away and Sansa thought she saw shame in his eyes, but every ounce of rage and fear and worthlessness that she had felt since he had run to the True North was already burning within her. “I wanted you to be part of the future Jon. To be the future of the North, of the Starks, to be my future.” _

_She walked passed him and opened the door, appreciating the cool winds of reality blowing into her hair. _

_“And you didn’t choose me.” She shut the door behind her._

~~~

Sansa stared at the great Heart Tree with its white wood and blood red leaves. She had once found the face carved into the trunk frightening and intimidating, but now it was the face of her father, and Robb, and Rickon, even of her mother a little. She glanced at the man to her right. He was a tall man, as tall as her, and his dark curls were truly lovely. He looked rather becoming in his orange coloured cloak. It had been edged with cloth of gold, so as to not clash with her hair and Sansa appreciated the care. 

The Prince of Dorne smiled softly at her. She smiled back, and tried not to wish another man stood in his place. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos are my bread and butter! :)


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